Spaces Between
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Natsu and Lisanna take a step further in their relationship. Neither realized how lonely they'd feel though, at the conclusion. - One-shot.


It almost felt fake. Unreal. Like a dream she'd had, long ago, but now was being completed in reality.

"Where," she whispered as she only laid there, a hand in the air, "is Happy?"

"I dunno," Natsu whispered back as his hand stayed in the air as well, pressed against hers, both moving their fingers slightly, together, as if a mirror. "At the hall? With Carla? Or maybe he's back at home."

"He'll miss you."

"I told him," he breathed softly, slowly, two things Natsu rarely was, but was all he'd been, the past half hour or so, "I was with you."

Lisanna blushed, her fair skin all heating up and turning red at the thought. This, for some reason, sounded far more intimate than what they'd just… For the first time they'd…

"You can't stay," she told him rather bluntly then, though they both continued to toy with one another's fingers. "Sis and Elf will be home eventually. I really don't wanna have a conversation with them about how..."

"I'll leave," he assured her. Then, still only watching her blue eyes, he asked, "You don't wanna come with me?"

"It'd be...awkward. With Happy there. I don't-"

"I'll kick him to Lucy's," he reasoned. "We crash there all the time."

"I just told you though, that he'll miss you, if you're gone for too long."

His face was even, too, as he said, "I'll miss you though. If you don't come."

She faltered some, with the pattern they had going with their fingers, but it was fine as, noting this, Natsu's only fell between hers, gripping tightly as, together, their hands fell, back down to her bed.

It was hard to pinpoint a true start to their relationship. It felt, at times, as if it were as old as they were. Or at least as old as their time together in Fairy Tail was. But that wasn't true. Upon her return from Edolas, things were kind of, well, awkward. They'd grown, separately, as people, and she needed space, anyways, to decide just what she wanted out of her second chance at life. Then all that stuff happened, with the hall. All the stuff that was constantly happening. It was really hard to broach a relationship with someone who was constantly off, dealing with all the shit that was, well, constantly barraging them.

But about two months ago, things seemed...normal again. At Fairy Tail. It was just the right amount of hectic and calm as it typically was and there was no longer an overwhelming threat to the place. Just the usual, minor ones.

They were just hanging out, in the normal way that they had always hung out, Lisanna and Natsu were, and Happy had been with them, but as they walked back to the hall, he sped ahead, claiming he wanted to get as Carla as quickly as possible (Lisanna had bought a special fish for him to present her with, at the market, and he was just sure it would work this time), leaving the two of them alone. There. Walking back. A beat passed over them and Lisanna felt it, as their conversation lulled a bit and Natsu only kicked at the ground some before muttering her name.

"What?" she asked, tilting her head up at him and he was so bad at these things, she knew. Feelings. If it wasn't the pangs of hunger or the heat of a battle, Natsu avoided confronting them. He did love and care for things, but it was only acknowledged when it was forced to the surface through circumstance. "Natsu?"

"I… Did you wanna go out tonight? Or are you pulling a shift up at the bar?"

"Well, I'm not, but I dunno if Happy wants to leave the bar again. He thinks that he and Carla-"

"I meant," the slayer added, trying to be direct, "without Hap."

She'd dreamed of this moment. For years. Many years. And though time had played with them both a bit and caused some things to be put on hold, at his words everything came rushing right back and wow, she had so much to do.

"L-Lisanna!" he called as she turned and ran the other way. "Where-"

"I have to get ready!"

"You could go how you are now."

No.

No, she couldn't.

When Natsu arrived at the Strauss household later that night, he felt something he typically didn't have. In any situation. But especially when dealing with something dumb like going to Lisanna's place. He'd been going there since he was a boy. Why was it such an issue now?

Because...because things were different. He was nervous, though he couldn't put a name to it, because he was hedging their entire friendship on the night. It would be kind of hard to fall back into silly, stupid friendship after you tested the waters of a date. A real date. But he just felt it, that day as they'd been walking home, and Natsu always confronted his feelings. He had so few of them, after all.

It was time. Time for what, he wasn't sure at first, but when he recognized it as relating to Lisanna, his best friend, he knew he had to get on with it, whatever it was, and quickly. So he asked her, right at the same moment the question popped into his head, and now he was coming to collect her for...for…

"If you're gonna date my baby sister," Elfman grumbled as he opened the door, "you better do it like a man."

For their date. Yes. That's what he was getting her for.

"Elfman!" And Lisanna was there then, shoving and hitting her her brother. "Go away. You don't act like this when Mira has a date."

Because Mira did those all the time. And she was a man. Dating men. Between two men, most anything could get solved! Lisanna and Natsu were hardly men. Manly, at times, fine, one of them was, but not men.

Natsu glared after Elfman as he slunk back, further into the house, but Lisanna was only stepping out on the porch then, grinning up at Natsu with wide eyes and, yeah, somehow, for some reason, she did look better than she had earlier in the day. Showered and smelling nice and in more than just her jeans and an old t-shirt and...and…

"We can go," he offered up as, when they walked then, away from her home, he only held out his hand and she cautiously let her palm fall right into it, "wherever you want."

She wanted somewhere nice and that was okay, for once, because Natsu had actually only just arrived home from a job and for all the nerves he'd built up, and was certain she had as well, they fell into such an easy rhythm. The one they'd had their entire lives. He and Lisanna were just entwined, somehow. Fated. Meant to be. She'd battled death to get back to him and he'd gone through hell and back just to stay alive, but here they were. Together. Grown up some, a lot even, but still with only time for one another.

Why had they waited so long?

At the end of the night he dropped her off with a kiss and Mira was off from work then so they could gush about that alone, she and her sister could, as they fell asleep in Mira's bed together, giggling and whispering all about it as Elfman laid miserably alone in his, not nearly as thrilled at this new development.

Happy was waiting up for Natsu, when he got back, and was full of his own questions, but Natsu only waved him off and that was fine because Lisanna had remembered to save him a doggy- err, kitty bag filled with leftovers and, well, food was always one way to quiet the cat.

Somehow, it felt easier after that. Get the first one out of the way and the rest were a breeze. Lisanna had to work the next day and Lucy was a bit strapped for cash (like always) so he and Happy accompanied her on a job, during which Natsu had to now deal with not only the Exceed's ribbing, but also the celestial mage.

It had been worth it though.

The day they returned, he took Lisanna out again, for lunch that time, and they had such a great time and it would be come a bit of a pattern, probably, between them. Him taking jobs, taking her out when he returned, and if he could accumulate some more jewels, maybe a lot more often! But when he suggested this, Lisanna only giggled at him and offered the cover the bill that time instead.

"We are," she reminded him simply, "in this together. Aren't we?"

He sure hoped so.

Neither of them had ever gotten that far though. With another person. They'd never dated, either one of them, given they were typically so busy in the enigma that was Fairy Tail and Natsu felt it, one night after a date, that it was...that they'd have to, well, continue you on. Passed the quick pecks goodnight.

It hardly felt expedient. They had, after all, been together most of their young life, anyways. There was nothing left to learn about their lives together; everything they needed to know about one another had been known for many years at that point.

He wasn't sure how to broach the subject though and this time, like with paying for dinner, Lisanna picked up where he faltered, offering him one night when he walked her back home to come inside.

"Elf and Mira are out," she reasoned simply. "Unless you have to get back to Hap-"

"He's fine," Natsu insisted and he was usually so openly forward in his desires, but he worried then, than he was going to be too upfront about all this, but Lisanna seemed fine. The whole time.

They didn't do much that night, anyways.

Just made out on her couch and that was the furthest either had ever gone with another person and, wow, to finally feel your arrested development slip away from you, to finally catch up to the pack, to do it with the one person that you knew you were always supposed to be with, your soul mate…

"That's what we are," Lisanna told him simply the next time she invited him in and they skipped right over the couch, instead heading to her tiny bedroom in the back of the house. "Soul mates."

Natsu could only nod, because he got it now, how had he missed it for so long, and none of it felt rushed. It just felt right.

They fumbled though in a lot of ways and Lisanna giggled a lot, as well as blushed and Natsu worried that he'd, somehow, pressured her into this, but she only shook her head when he suggested this and for all the slow steps they'd taken before, over the course of many years, to finally get to suck a huge milestone was…

"I'll miss you too," Lisanna whispered as they only laid there, hands clasped, just looking at one another. She meat it. She didn't know if he did, if the moment had just eroded his brain a bit, for a second, but she really did mean what she was saying. She'd always miss him. Now. She didn't realize she could feel so whole before this moment. "But...you'll be around tomorrow, huh? At the bar?"

"Yeah," he agreed and when his hand was shaken free of hers, Lisanna tried hard not to look disappointed. It was easier than expected as, just as quickly, the slayer was leaning over to press a gentle kiss against her lips. "I definitely will."

She had a lot of worries and concerns when Natsu left (like how weird Mira was going to make all this...not to mention the whole guild…), but only pushed all those things out of her mind as she changed her sheets that night before slipping back into bed, hoping for sleep before her siblings arrived home and, therefore, avoiding just for one more day, having to explain this to someone. Mira. And the always disapproving Elfman who would no doubt eavesdrop in disgust.

The bed didn't fell as warm, of course, without the Salamander in it, but when she closed her eyes, Lisanna could still feel it. Him. There. With her. And it was true. She did miss him. So much. She always would. Whenever he was away. Now.

Laying a hand flat on the mattress, she spread her fingers out, finding the spaces between them empty and the springy fabric not providing near the support the slayer had, only an hour or so before. She wondered, for how connected they had been, there, in her bed, if he was doing the same thing, back at his tiny, rundown home with Happy. If he too found it unnerving, so unnerving, to feel empty, so empty, placed back in the same situation you'd always been, up until that point, your entire life.

As she balled her fingers into a tight fist, Lisanna shut her eyes just as tightly and prayed for sleep, if only because it would hurry the night through and could get her back to the guild the next morning where, hopefully, the man didn't take long to show up.

She didn't figure he would. How could he? If he felt the same loneliness she felt then. All alone. Without each other.

"What's wrong?" was being questioned sometime later, though not to her. Rather, in a different place entirely. "Natsu?"

"Nothing, little buddy," the slayer sighed as he only laid there, in his bed, silent as he'd been the whole night. It worried the Exceed, but Natsu only faced the wall, spreading and unspreading his fingers against the sheets of his head, never noticing before just how empty the spaces between each finger felt, when someone else's weren't filling them for you. "Nothing."


End file.
